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Ideas for 'works', 'Principles of Philosophy' and 'Essays on Active Powers 1: Active power'

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6 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic

23664	Powers are quite distinct and simple, and so cannot be defined [Reid]
	Full Idea: Power is a thing so much of its own kind, and so simple in its nature, as to admit of no logical definition.
	From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 1: Active power [1788], 1)
	A reaction: True. And this makes Powers ideally suited for the role of primitives in a metaphysics of nature.

23669	Thinkers say that matter has intrinsic powers, but is also passive and acted upon [Reid]
	Full Idea: Those philosophers who attribute to matter the power of gravitation, and other active powers, teach us, at the same time, that matter is a substance altogether inert, and merely passive; …that those powers are impressed on it by some external cause.
	From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 1: Active power [1788], 6)
	A reaction: This shows the dilemma of the period, when 'laws of nature' were imposed on passive matter by God, and yet gravity and magnetism appeared as inherent properties of matter.

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived

16744	All powers can be explained by obvious features like size, shape and motion of matter [Descartes]
	Full Idea: There are no powers in stones and plants that are not so mysterious that they cannot be explained …from principles that are known to all and admitted by all, namely the shape, size, position, and motion of particles of matter.
	From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], IV.187), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6
	A reaction: This is an invocation of 'categorical' properties, against dispositions. I take this to be quite wrong. The explanation goes the other way. What supports the structures; what drives the motion; what initiates anything?

23666	It is obvious that there could not be a power without a subject which possesses it [Reid]
	Full Idea: It is evident that a power is a quality, and cannot exist without a subject to which it belongs. That power may exist without any being or subject to which that power may be attributed, is an absurdity, shocking to every man of common understanding.
	From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 1: Active power [1788], 1)
	A reaction: This is understandble in the 18th C, when free-floating powers were inconceivable, but now that we have fields and plasmas and whatnot, we can't rule out pure powers as basic. However, I incline to agree with Reid. Matter is active.

8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 1. Universals

5016	Five universals: genus, species, difference, property, accident [Descartes]
	Full Idea: The five commonly enumerated universals are: genus, species, difference, property and accident.
	From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.59)
	A reaction: Interestingly, this seems to be Descartes passing on his medieval Aristotelian inheritance, in which things are defined by placing them in a class, and then noting what distinguishes them within that class.

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism

5015	A universal is a single idea applied to individual things that are similar to one another [Descartes]
	Full Idea: Universals arise solely from the fact that we avail ourselves of one idea in order to think of all individual things that have a certain similitude. When we understand under the same name all the objects represented by this idea, that name is universal.
	From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.59)
	A reaction: Judging by the boldness of the pronouncement, it looks as if Descartes hasn't recognised the complexity of the problem. How do we spot a 'similarity', especially an abstraction like 'tool' or 'useful'? This sounds like Descartes trying to avoid Platonism.